Washington Post columnist George Will has a novel explanation for why President Barack Obama continues to lead challenger Mitt Romney in the polls: it’s because Obama is black.
Seriously, that’s Will’s reasoning.
The idea is this: the country, its economy, and the Obama administration are in “shambles,” to quote Will. Unemployment is at 8 percent. Durable goods orders are down! And who among us doesn’t hinge our vote on the metric of durable goods? Tesla Motors isn’t doing well — TESLA! — despite a major cash infusion from the Department of Energy, and as we all know, as goes Tesla, so goes the nation. Therefore, Romney should be mopping the floor with Obama.
So why isn’t Mitt ahead in the polls? Will’s explanation starts with his favorite metaphor: baseball…
A significant date in the nation’s civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues’ first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.
Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.
And how is Barack Obama like Jackie Robinson? I think you can guess:
…That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC’s excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president.
Will calls his theory a “pleasant paradox.” I think a more fitting term for it is unpleasant paternalism. In fact, it’s an especially noxious kind of patronizing, race-obsessed paternalism Will has perfected over the years.
It’s easy to understand Will’s frustration. His wife, Mari Maseng, was a consultant to the failed Rick Perry presidential campaign, specializing in, of all things, debate prep (and we all know how that worked out, I think the closing line for Gov. Perry was “oops…”) But Will’s insistence that race is the be all and end all of Barack Obama’s political success is ironic, given Will’s stated belief that it is the left that devolves every issue down to color and creed.
Turns out it’s George Will who seems to see the bogeyman of blackness around every corner, and under every bed. He was among those on the right who in 2008 couldn’t think of a reason lifelong Republican and George W. Bush secretary of state Collin Powell would endorse Obama in 2008, other than race. Will projected a two-for-one Election Night vote bonanza for Obama, because in his view, America was eager to make itself feel good by voting for the black guy — a plummeting economy, an unsteady John McCain, with no less than the erratic Sarah Palin by his side, not to mention an aggressive and expertly-run Obama campaign apparently having nothing to do with the outcome of that presidential contest.
During the current election cycle, Will determined that the most significant thing about Herman Cain winning a Florida straw poll during the Republican primary was Cain’s race (and the supposedly explosive effect Mr. 999’s blackness had on liberals).
It is Will who managed to cram Barack Obama, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the Congressional Black Caucus’ supposed fear of Mia Love entering the U.S. House into a column ostensibly about how unremarkable Love’s blackness is in Utah.
Will’s narrative presumes that white voters (his comments after all, are aimed mostly at them) can’t think for themselves, and certainly cannot think beyond the pangs of “white guilt” that he claims drive liberalism — even though liberals represent just 15 percent of the country, so his “guilt” theory must also apply to moderates and at least some conservatives.
They can’t be expressing a preference for Obama based on the economy, even though the national unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 percent for white men over 20 years old in August, and 6.5 percent for white women over 20; that’s more than a full point below the national average, and fewer than three points above what economists consider “full employment.”
They can’t be voting based on their regional circumstances: even though the unemployment rate in key swing states like Ohio (7.2 percent), Virginia (5.9 percent), Iowa (5.5 percent) and Wisconsin (7.5) percent, are below the national average, and the fact that in states like Ohio and Michigan, the economy has improved in part due to the auto bailout that Obama implemented and Romney opposed.
They can’t possibly be led by their personal circumstances, despite the fact that polls show economic optimism is on the rise, and has been since January, which makes Romney’s idea of running solely on economic pessimism — of the kind expressed in Will’s column — seem kind of short sighted, and the sign of a bad campaign.
They can’t possibly have affixed blame for the economic crash of 2008 on the previous administration — you know, the one George Will supported (except that polls show most voters do blame Bush) and therefore, how could voters possibly be amenable to giving Obama, his race notwithstanding, more time to turn things around?
And they can’t possibly have decided all on their own, that they simply prefer Obama as a person to Romney, and not just because Obama is, you know, black.
White voters cannot possibly be expressing a preference for Obama’s policies with regard to the future of Medicare, in Will’s worldview. But for the president’s race, Americans would clearly be all for voucherizing the old age healthcare program. And clearly, Obama’s blackness, and the guilt his blackness imparts on white America (despite the black side of his family never having been enslaved) is the reason most poll respondents prefer Obama’s stands on women’s issues and immigration.
And Romney’s “47 percent” comments? Those wouldn’t be harming his candidacy in the slightest, if only Barack Obama wasn’t so very, very black.
In short, in George Will’s view, there are no circumstances, independent of race, that could possibly be contributing to Obama’s durable lead in both swing state and national polls. It’s not the slowly but surely improving economy, or Americans’ perception that the current president is fixing the previous president’s mess, or people’s subjective preference for one candidate or another. It’s not Romney’s fault or the fault of his horribly-run campaign. It’s race. Because, you know, the other guy is black.
Thanks, George Will.
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